


the hole I wore into your soul has got too big to overlook

by toniboonch



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Bring Me The Horizon - Freeform, Emotional, F/M, Jeronica, Loss, Love, Veronica Lodge - Freeform, jughead jones - Freeform, metaphors upon metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28278375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toniboonch/pseuds/toniboonch
Summary: art is a killer.jughead has given all of himself to create. ripping skin from his body to do so until he lay barren. a mere skeleton. dead to the world. hollow.until her.her vibrancy. her pages. her stories. her skin so supple and full of life as it wraps around him.as he takes it from her.as he clothes himself, leaving her a skeleton instead.but it’s love.they both know it. they both feel it.maybe art isn’t a killer, but love is.
Relationships: Jughead Jones/Veronica Lodge
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	the hole I wore into your soul has got too big to overlook

**Author's Note:**

> i was feeling emo and started listening to bring me the horizon again. also really missed writing jeronica, they’re the epitome of right person, wrong time to me so they always end up just a tad toxic. 
> 
> this is inspired by, and includes the lyrics of, One Day The Only Butterflies Left Will Be In Your Chest As You March Towards Your Death by Bring Me The Horizon (feat. Amy Lee)  
> I suggest listening to the song either before or during reading this!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: toxic relationship elements

**On the verge of no return, why'd you keep fucking it up?**

**Don't wanna have to bury you, but nothing seems to get through your skull**

**One day the only butterflies left will be in your chest**

**As you march towards your death, breathing your last breath**

**I hate to say, "I told you so", but look how the bruises show**

Veronica wondered why he did it. Why he was so tortured. She tried reason and love until she was a shell of herself, giving her all to him in an effort to fix what had been broken long ago. Only she didn’t know she was doing so, not until it was almost too late.

He was so charming, so _warm._ He was creative and smart, despite the skeleton he was.

They complimented each other so beautifully. Their love going through layers of metamorphosis to become one that others envied.

She could fix him, make him the great creative he once was. She could stop him from his strategic march to obscurity. 

They were good to each other, despite being hot and cold. 

They were so in love, despite her brain being fuzzy from his words.

They were forever, despite the chill she was beginning to feel.

**Tell me, how's it gonna feel without my arms wrapped around, wrapped around you?**

**Bet it feels pretty real when your skin starts to peel from the bone**

**You were dead to the world, now I'm dead to you**

**Haunting your own house, nothing to lose**

**How did I let you sink your fangs so deep? Ah**

**You know you can't breathe on your own**

His cold hands pressed into her stomach as he held her close. Veronica sighed into his touch, her teeth forming a smile. She was so warm.

He wanted her warmth. He wanted her life. 

Jughead was washed up before her. He couldn’t create, he couldn’t write. She had given him purpose. His muse.

He leeched into her, taking whatever she had to offer. He wrote about her with fruition, with love, with dedication, with everything. She fawned at his words.

But sometimes the everything he gave, wasn’t his to give, but hers instead. He knew it was wrong, but he didn’t care. The world looked to him again, they turned his pages, her pages, with a new appreciation.

Her giving slowed, but he continued to take, prying things from her that she wanted to keep. One day he would train her to just give.

He didn’t think it was wrong, how could it be when she smiled so lovingly at him? When she kissed him so slowly? When she held his brisk hand in her tepid one?

Her stories were his now.

**Past the point of rescuing, why'd I keep pushing my luck?**

**The hole I wore into your soul has got too big to overlook**

**One day the only butterflies left will be in our chests**

**As we march towards our death, breathing our last breath**

**I thought we had a future, but we ain't got a chance in hell**

Jughead wondered why she did it. Why she stayed. His fingers had pried their way into her chest, opening her up. He ripped her pages from her spine, using the warmth to cover his own exposed body. He had stolen from himself so long ago. The warmth drained.

She was so full of life. So easy. She was his _muse_ . He just kept _using_ her to create. It was wrong… He had always known.

But her manuscript was thinning, flying away in the wind the more he took to fill his own pages. 

She willingly gave everything, soon he didn’t even have to reach for her words, her stories. She readily gave with a shaky hand and an almost empty book. Her spine screamed when she began to rid herself of her skin, hollowing herself to match him.

Only they didn’t match anymore. They weren’t two skeletons. He used her skin, patching himself, giving him warmth and life. She was too blind to see how he was using her.

There were too many words for him to handle. Too many pages. They cut him as he tried to organize, the ones he used for his skin cracked and bled. He didn’t know what to do anymore. The muse had withered, shameful and tragic stories began to flow from her. The leftover pages were scribbled over in red ink… his handwriting.

Jughead begged her to get new stories, but she just handed him more old, tattered pages, patiently waiting for his own pages to fill her empty spine.

But they never did because he was a coward.

And she was cold.

**So tell me, how's it gonna feel without my arms wrapped around, wrapped around you?**

**Bet it feels pretty real when your skin starts to peel from the bone**

**You were dead to the world, now I'm dead to you**

**Haunting your own house, nothing to lose**

**I let you sink your fangs so deep, ah**

**You know I can't breathe on my own (you know you can't breathe on your own)**

**How can I breathe on my own? (How can you breathe on your own?)**

His warm hands pressed into her stomach as he held her close. Veronica shivered into him, her teeth chattering. She used to be so warm.

But now Jughead was the lively one, draining her of her light to fuel himself, to keep him from fading into the nothing he always felt he was. 

His bone creaked, the pages desperate to get back to their beloved owner, to make her warm again. It kept him up at night.

Why did she stay?

“I love you,” she whispered into the dark.

“I love you too,” he replied.

_Did he mean it?_

“I love you,” she said, pulling him closer to her the next night.

“I love you too,” he responded, guilt filling him.

_Why did she fucking stay?_

“I love you,” he gasped out the next night, her lungs were trying to suffocate him.

“I love you too,” she muttered, turning from him to shake under the covers.

She pulled pages back from him.

“I love you,” he begged, a luke-warm hand grazing fiery skin.

She didn’t reply.

“Please, Ronnie.”

“I need to leave,” she choked out.

**The sun is setting on our love, I fear**

**Letting our loneliness out into the atmosphere**

**The tide is turning on, our chance to turn it 'round**

**I never thought I'd see my fingernails fall out**

Her boxes were stacked near the front door. Her belongings, her pages. _Gone._ She was leaving him forever because of his own selfishness. 

He watched her look over her things, her mouth moving silently as she went over her To-Do list.

They made brief eye contact from time to time as he leaned against the wall, his hair flopped in his face, his skin frigid from the lack of her warmth. Her _love._

She looked at him then, watching the ragged breath leave his body. She saw the defeat, the _regret._ Could he be alone?

But Jughead wasn’t her _problem_ anymore…

Men came in and took her boxes. Fragments of her soul ripping from his own skin. She was polite, friendly. _Lighter._

Veronica was glowing, the burden of his failures not collapsing her chest. She was happier, she was _free._

And he was left to die alone, to fade into nothing. But he didn’t blame her. He didn’t want to hold her back any longer. He was so _cold._

He was fine being a skeleton, a ghost. Jughead wouldn’t be able to drain her anymore. 

The boxes were gone, his entry empty and grey, besides the hesitation of the girl in front of him. There was so much to say, but nothing left his lips. He sunk deeper into the wall, his eyes falling to his socked feet. Jughead wished he would disappear, fall right through the wall.

He had fucked up… so badly. They weren’t in love anymore. He wouldn’t create again. 

Did writing even matter anymore? Did he matter without her by his side? Warming his skin, his mind, his bed. 

She looked at him, he could feel Veronica’s lively gaze strike through him, but he refused to meet eyes, he refused to say goodbye. This was for the best… but only hers. 

Could he breathe on his own? _She was his air._

“Jug?”

Blue eyes snapped up to meet dark brown. Her voice left shivers up and down his skeleton. She watched him waste away with a soft smile on her lips, the sun from the open door only hitting her.

He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to waste the final look. Jughead didn’t speak and she didn’t make him. She slung her purse over her shoulder, giving the entryway one last look around. 

She took a deep breath, her airway smooth and clear.

“Goodbye.”

**Love isn't in the air**

**Love isn't in the air**

**Love isn't in the air**

**Love isn't in the air**

She turned to the door, walking out into the sun. She paused once again, turning to look at him over her shoulder. She smiled brightly, “I love you.”

Jughead’s eyes widened. But she hated him? But he destroyed her? She was so silent that final night. “I-I love you too.”

Veronica nodded at him, “Maybe someday…” She trailed off, hoping he agreed.

“Maybe.” 

She took a final breath, turning from him as she walked through the doorway. She took the door with her, closing it on the dark haired man, casting him in darkness without her sun.

She was gone, but he still held so tightly onto her few pages. Veronica would return for them eventually and maybe, just maybe, he would learn how to give them back.

They loved each other after all.

Jughead turned back into his frigid house, his body shaking without her.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you guys understood that jumbled mess
> 
> happy holidays! :)


End file.
